And no real surprise over here…
The first six months of the Trump administration have not been kind to the experts and the degree-holding classes.
Almost daily during the tariff hysterias of March, we were told by university economists and most of the PhDs employed in investment and finance that the U.S. was headed toward a downward, if not recessionary, spiral.
Most economists lectured that trade deficits did not really matter. Or they insisted that the cures to reduce them were worse than the $1.1 trillion deficit itself.
They reminded us that free, rather than fair, trade alone ensured prosperity.
So, the result of Trump’s foolhardy tariff talk would be an impending recession. America would soon suffer rising joblessness, inflation–or rather a return to stagflation–and likely little, if any, increase in tariff revenue as trade volume declined.
Instead, recent data show increases in tariff revenue. Personal real income and savings were up. Job creation exceeded prognoses. There was no surge in inflation. The supposedly “crashed” stock market reached historic highs.
Full article, HERE from PJ Media.
This falls right in line with the loss of trust in the main stream media, and most of the politicians.
Personally, I think a LOT of this relates directly back to the whole WuFlu debacle. From the ‘experts’ who had no real idea of what to do, to those who suppressed data, to the power hungry who closed schools, businesses, etc. on the ‘whims’ of the elites, ad infinitum.
For many of us ‘peons’ it seemed that common sense solutions were immediately tossed to the winds, and we saw many instances of ‘not invented here’ syndrome. All of this caused many of us to do the cocked head look and go away mumbling to ourselves.
And I don’t think it’s getting any better…
Your thoughts?
It will get worse once Trump leaves office unless Vance is elected President in 2028 then the good times will continue to roll on.
“Personally, I think a LOT of this relates directly back to the whole WuFlu debacle.”
The scary thing to me is that this stuff has been going on for generations, but it took as major a disruption as the chaos during the Wuhan Flu panic for most people to catch on.
A dose of healthy skepticism is something we’ve needed as a people for a long time.
Yup. And if you want to see what happens when the idiots do manage to stay in power, look at the UK.
I have noticed it is impossible for the Associated Press to write an article on any subject that does not have a negative comment on Trump. Politics, business, science(LOL), health or entertainment there is going to be a dig at Bad Orange Man.
TDS is strong there.
I think the strong opposition to Trump’s policies are based on expert’s fear of being proven wrong and not whether they will work or not.
Do you think it’s fair to judge the long-term impact of tariffs on a six-month snapshot? What about the retaliatory effects on farmers or manufacturing?
Do you think science should remain fixed, or adapt to new evidence, even if it means earlier advice changes?
Do I trust the predictions? No, and I don’t trust the reports from any media, or government source. Trump may be in office, and many of his staff competent, but the government is filled with people either too incompetent, or lazy, to make a living in the private sector. Time will tell how this will pan out, but if it’s as usual, the deficit will rise, the grift will be strong by favored people, and taxpayers will continue to suffer from the foolishness of those hired to run the government.
Yeah, I have expressed my thoughts on this topic before, so you may recall that I would vehemently concur on those conclusions.
The expert class earned a lot of respect in WWII but has frittered it away since, and now it is totally gone. The ultimate was their behavior during Covid, no edict no matter how stupid had to be followed, and if you questioned things like ‘6 ft spacing’ you were ‘denying science’. The fact that EVERY facet of Democratic ecosystem was immediately in lock-step on everything was a factor too.
Now, every time the MSM starts wailing doom and gloom about one of Trump’s moves I just wait a few weeks and lo and behold his actions were to the benefit of the US instead of benefiting the Davos crowd.
Mr. Hanson neglected to point out the long history of failure from the “gun violence” experts that has been going on for a long time. Every time a gun regulation is loosened or a pro-gun bill passed, violent crime will increase, more people will die and the streets will run red with blood. Of course none of that ever happens – but the experts never admit their predictions were off, and they never change their tune in the face of evidence contrary to their ‘learned opinion’.
Let’s see, there are now four farmers’ markets around where I live, all of whom do a brisk business. I am smelling a lot more meat being grilled and smoked than I have the past two-three years, all over the neighborhood around my house, and not just on holidays. Yes, farmers are concerned, as are ranchers, but the flooding rains are unrelated to tariffs.
Could these be a short-term uptick before a long-term decline? Possibly. Are they a signal of optimism rather than economic growth? Also possible.
The only constant is change. Let us enjoy this while it lasts.
My trust in the expert class began a rapid decline when I went back to college amid the reproducibility crisis, the uptick in the retraction rate, and the NAS report on the FBI crime lab and forensic science. Climate change silliness and COVID just about killed it.
All- Good points! And yes, it’s been ‘coming’ for a long time… sigh
Actual subject matter experts are far and few between.
Whenever the press claims to have an expert, don’t believe them, because they’re lying. Genuine experts prize truth, honesty, and their own reputations which actually mean something. They know to stay far FAR away from the presstitutes.
Almost everyone who presents themselves as an expert isn’t. They just have or subscribe to an agenda.
Ag- Oh so true!
Dan- Agreed!!!
Most true experts are in high demand and charge high rates to people who will make money from their advice.
Media members are notorious for not paying experts and thinking that the exposure is worth more… And as a result they either get so called experts or real experts who are using them to grind an ax.
There’s a joking argument that I am an expert in expertise.
Tom Nichols may have pissed me off with his ‘Death of Expertise’. My ‘special course of study’ was to think a bit, and develop a different definition of expert that I believe to be more correct.
Under the definition I made, I am not an expert in that, because I have not been demonstrated using that stuff in way that public or customers find solves their problems in a better way.
I do /think/ that I have special knowledge in expertise, that maybe few have inside of academia. (Outside of academia, I expect most people are a bit utilitarian in whether they really value the work done by degreed lunatics.)
It is relatively trivial to have an opinion, or find something out, that nobody else has. It is easy to find stupid ideas, that do not emotionally resonate with very many, that one personally still has enough emotional resonance with to pursue a little ways.
Credentialling in rare knowledge, that genuinely has applications, but the specific knowledge has few economic applications, is also relatively easy.
(Economically valuable skills, that are easy to develop, quite a lot of people may have developed. For example, time management skills. Lots of people have those in different ways, but the demand for it is pretty robust. (Though, I personally find time management challenging.))
It is maybe harder to develop a broad and deep skill level in something of economic importance. And, even with some level of skill, skill without marketing does not bring in any customers.
Universities now may have had okayish marketing through, say, 2019, and other functions ranging a bit decayed to cargo cultish.
Seemingly few had the Austrian economics and other theoretical knowledge to understand the hazards of the risks they were taking. For example, people will evaluate you more strictly depending on your economic impact on them, so if you are maybe wrong you should seek less impact, not more. For example, academics act as proxies in some ways, and that depends on them to deliver loyally on being honest proxies.
The ‘grand societal challenge’ stuff is an exercise that really depended on academics not doing a bunch of self dealing to soak the public. Once the academics are callously self-dealing, and starting to get into trouble that way, a Cartmann-esque ‘you will respect muh authoriteh’ is very likely to make the trouble worse. Which is what Nichols seemed to be doing, and which is also a trend that has seemed apparent in academics since.
I think the Fauci panic was an incorrect gamble of supposed expertise. I think it was very avoidable (but my priors are to do nothing, which is opposite of useful in managers), and that people were derelict not to avoid it. It’d be foolish to assume that nobody was paying attention during and after the panic, that the ‘uneducated’ public was not learning from it, and that there would not be consequences in how they estimate the utility of university academics in the future.
Academics often seem to have precisely been this foolish.
Some also seem to have convinced themselves that Harris would be a good marketing ploy for public funding of the academic henwit community.
“Do you think it’s fair to judge the long-term impact of tariffs on a six-month snapshot?”
RJ, my answer would be “no”, but the dire predictions were all based on a very short term prognosis, so they have been completely wrong so far. Also worth noting that many countries have already renegotiate trade deals and made them more favorable to us
Jonathan- Good point!
Bob- Good point! ‘Expertise’ is either a mile wide and an inch deep, or an inch wide and a mile deep
Hereso- Agreed!